Crew Fatigue on Oil Tankers: 50% of Seafarers Work 85+ Hours Per Week

Almost half of all seafarers surveyed report working more than 85 hours per week, far exceeding the Maritime Labour Convention's standard of 8-hour days with one rest day per week. One in four seafarers admits to having fallen asleep while on watch, and roughly half consider their working hours a danger to their personal safety. Fatigue is estimated to cause 25% of all marine casualties, and has been attributed to high-profile disasters including the Exxon Valdez grounding, which spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound. On oil tankers specifically, the problem is paradoxically worsened by safety requirements themselves. Because oil spills generate massive public attention and liability, tanker operators face frequent inspections by charterers, port state control, and classification societies. Each inspection demands paperwork preparation, equipment demonstrations, and corrective maintenance, all of which falls on the same small crew that is also navigating the ship, managing cargo operations, and standing watches. The safety bureaucracy designed to prevent disasters creates the fatigue conditions that cause them. This persists because crewing costs are the largest controllable expense for tanker operators, and minimum safe manning certificates set by flag states often specify crew sizes that are adequate only if everything goes perfectly. There is no enforcement mechanism that reliably catches rest-hour violations at sea. Logbooks are routinely falsified to show compliance because admitting non-compliance would trigger detentions and delays that hurt the crew financially through lost bonuses. The regulatory framework treats fatigue as an individual failing rather than a systemic design problem rooted in economic incentives to minimize crew size.